British Airborne Pt. 5- Intelligence Section

Intelligence Section

Featuring the intelligence officer posted in part 1, this is the section that sometimes accompanies him onto the battlefield. This option was featured in the Battle of the Bulge campaign book and I like using it sometimes. I had four paras left over (3 Warlord and 1 Artizan Designs) for the section. They add another Order Dice to the bag and can pack quite a bit of short range punch. 

Alternatively, the intelligence officer can be attached to another officer's team. I sometimes do this, putting him with a lieutenant and his +1 man in a jeep for increased mobility.

British Airborne Pt. 4- Paradogs

Paradogs

I had no idea these animals existed until I read Osprey's Warrior 174 British Paratroopers (1940-45). On page 49 there is a colour illustration of Cpl Aaron Walton and his paradog, Bing, about to leap from an aeroplane over the Rhine. 

Paradogs acted as guard dogs, patrolling perimeters and alerting sentries to intruders. These plucky canines leapt out of a plane during wartime. Indeed, Bing had jumped over Normandy on D-Day, get lodged in a tree on descent, was injured by shrapnel and then finally cut down by his handler and carried on with his war! Superb! Dogs and their handlers won medals. A handler and his dog (Pte. Emil Corteil & Glen) are buried together in a cemetery in Ranville. How could I not want to reproduce this on the tabletop?

The soldier is a plastic Warlord figure. The dog is a Warlord Soviet bomb dog, repurposed for less explosive and final service. I clipped off the trigger peg on the top pouch and covered the explosives with a putty 'parachute'. Why it would still not be deployed by now is anyone's guess? 

For game purposes, I use the USMC Wardog rules from Empire in Flames. For 18 pts, you have a veteran trooper + dog, which provides Tough Fighters to its handler, and a spotting distance of 24" for Hidden enemies. Perfect! USMC Wardogs can be fielded in teams of up to four- more like an aggressive hunting pack, I feel, but one paradog seems enough and more fitting to their intended role.

British Airborne Pt. 3- Teams

While I continue to paint the infantry sections for this army (one and a half left to go...), here are a few of the other elements of the force drawn from the Platoon Organisation Chart.

MMG Team

Vickers MMG team from Warlord. I like to have members of my weapon teams based separately, so I can remove casualties as they occur. So, of course, my first example goes against that statement entirely! MMG loaders should be attached to their gunners, though, and that's what we have here. Team NCO is separate, and pointing like any respectable team leader should be...

Mortar Team

Separate team members! I like to put a mortar and its loader together on a pill base and position the rest of the team accordingly. I don't like basing teams on 60mm round bases- it makes them difficult to position in terrain/ buildings and a bit unwieldy. These are Artizan Designs miniatures.

Flamethrower & PIAT Teams

Both of these teams are Foundry casts. I aim to add the flamethrower team to my engineer section and swap out its Bren team occasionally (once they're painted), but otherwise I'll operate them as a separate team. I intend to get another PIAT team eventually, too, but for now, one team is going to have to be enough...

Sniper Team & Mortar Spotter

The mortar spotter is an Artizan Design figure. I love the pose and the image it conjures of desperate communication going on during the thick of a firefight.  The sniper is an Empress Miniatures design, drawn from their WW2 British range. I've co-opted him into my force purely because of the Denison smock he's wearing and also because I don't like any other airborne sniper figure that I've seen. A puzzle for me is his footwear. The sculpt, to me, looks like he's got sacking over his boots- for stealth (?!) or to keep his precious carpet slippers free from muck and grime... If anyone knows the reason for them, answers on a postcard, or in the comments below... Sniper team '+1' is a Warlord figure.

Terrain- Building 2- Cottage & Allotment

Building 2- Country Cottage

This MDF kit is from TT Combat, who produce great little kits at reasonable prices. I've collected several kits from their World War series, and this is the 'Maison Celeste' cottage.

In the corner of the garden is a Charlie Foxtrot 'Outside WC'. The barrel is a resin example from Serious Play Scenics, as are the seafoam tree and the rows of vegetables in the garden. The picket fence around the property is just coffee stirrers cut to size and made into fencing, with supports made from cut off BBQ skewer. The chimney pots are Lego cone pieces with flat pieces glued on top for the covers. The clothes line is cotton thread strung between two cocktail sticks...

As with my first yellow house, I retiled the roof of the cottage recently, which I think works much better. I'm not completely happy with the colour or texture of the outside walls, so I may revisit these at a later date.

Allotment

I had some strips of vegetables left over from the Serious Play Scenics pack I had bought for the cottage, and I had always wanted to make an allotment patch. I added a set of resin pumpkins, again from Serious Play Scenics, plus a bench and chicken coop (+ chickens) from Warbases. It's a nice little space filler on my gaming table, and adds a bit of character where otherwise a couple of trees or an open space would have been.

Terrain- Building 1- Yellow House

My terrain is mostly MDF kits I've collected from a mixture of companies. Favourites include Sarissa Precision, Charlie Foxtrot, TT Combat and a few others, plus bits and pieces from Debris of War, Serious Play Scenics and Anyscale Miniatures. As I've grown in confidence in my skills, I've made little additions to them- mostly widening the footprint to include a garden or yard, which I think is really important. Buildings don't just sit in isolation within their surroundings. 

I've also made my first moves into scratch-building a couple of pieces recently too. Credit will be given for inspiration where applicable. Please enjoy...

Building 1- Yellow House

This was the first MDF kit I purchased, from Charlie Foxtrot, to make a start on my terrain making journey. I purchased the 'Walled Tile 2' for the base and added 'Dormer House 2' as the main building, 'Workshop/Store' as a garage and a 'New Shed' in the corner. I completed the yard with a 'stone wall with 5 bar gate' so that the walls all matched and it felt like an enclosed property.

The tree is one of a 10 pack I picked up on eBay for not very much. The bicycle by the wall is a Dixon Miniatures production. Chimney pots are Lego pieces turned upside down.

The advertising sign and posters on the garage wall were all finds on the internet which I printed out on my home printer. The Byrrh sign is backed on cardboard for depth. The garden bench is part of a set from Warbases, and the sleeping cat on the bench is from Warlord's farm animal sprue and represents our own domestic moggy, Tallulah...

As a first effort, I'm still happy with this house for the most part. I've gone back to it a couple of times since I first built and painted it and added some details, then, in the last month or two, completely retiled all the roofs over the original paint job I'd done onto the lasered roof detail.

British Airborne Pt. 2- Troops

Troops

I've got four sections of British paras to complete for this force, but only two finished so far. They all follow the same configuration- NCO with SMG, another man (section 2nd in command) with SMG, an LMG team and 6 riflemen. The section has AT grenades. 

All of these figures are Foundry miniatures, a mixture from the helmeted, beret and specialists packs. These form the bulk of my 'rank and file', and I love the sculpts. You'll also notice the red base edge that I use to designate NCOs/ squad leaders.

Section 1

Section 2 is another mix of Foundry miniatures. I love the Bren team firing prone.

British Airborne Pt. 1- HQ

My latest army is the one that I have looked forward to building the most. As a boy, I read Victor, Commando and Battle comics and generally enjoyed reading war stories. A key memory for me was some Victor stories about British paratroopers in WW2 covering Arnhem and the taking of Pegasus Bridge. It was boy's own stuff, full of 'Forward the Ox and Bucks!' and 'Gott in Himmel!' as Germans met their grizzly end, but it forged itself indelibly in my young mind.

Fast forward several decades. I had completed enough of my Soviet and German Heer armies, and built enough scenery, to start playing Bolt Action regularly enough. My next project would now be the army I had promised myself for a long time- a small, elite force of British paras to take on my Germans. Lockdown has given me the time to focus on painting them up, but I have a few units left to go.

The force is made up of a mixture of Warlord, Artizan, Foundry and a couple of Empress miniatures. Vehicles are a mixture of Warlord and Paint & Glue machines. I hope you enjoy.

HQ

I've got a couple of 1st Lieutenants, each with an extra man. The first is a Warlord figure, accompanied by a radio operator from the Perry's airborne collection from the Foundry. I denote HQ officers with a yellow base edge for ease- some of my other edging colours will make an appearance below...

My second Lieutenant is from eBay, so I have no idea what range he is from. I liked his pose, urging his men forward with a wave of his hand. His beret looks like the fuller examples worn by the Polish, but I shaved it down a bit to be less 'puffy' (technical military term). He's followed by a Warlord para as his '+1'.

Medics get a white base edge. I love this figure and was glad I was able to get one as part of a Warlord offer recently.

Finally, my 'other' HQ officer ranks. These get a blue base edge to denote their non-leadership related abilities. On the left we have an Intelligence Officer, rules for which were included in the Battle of the Bulge Campaign book. He can be attached to an officer or given a section to accompany him. On the right is the free FOO that a British/ Commonwealth force can include. He's jumped in with the main force, so has his Denison smock, but on reflection, he wouldn't have a red beret if he's from the artillery. Might need to change that...

The Intelligence officer is Artizan, and the FOO is Foundry. There's a slight scale difference between these two manufacturers, but nothing glaring.